FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT DAIRY FARMERS - PAGE 2

NEW DELHI: India has drawn up a plan to create a 'white grid' or a milk grid in South Asia that will seek to replicate the success of the 'white revolution' launched in the 1970s, two government officials familiar with the development told ET. The proposed regional milk grid will benefit dairy farmers in the region by linking milk surplus countries with the deficit ones, they said. New Delhi will also push for tariff reduction to less than 5% under the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA)

Devendra Shah, Chairman, Parag Milk Foods When Ravi Shastri drove across the Melbourne Cricket Ground in an Audi 100 on March 10, 1985, little would he have realised that he had inspired a budding entrepreneur in a small town back home. Devendra Shah, then 21, who was watching the proceedings live on television in Manchar in Pune district decided he too wanted to become a "champion of champions" just like Shastri, and own an Audi car one day. "Like any other youngster, I was ambitious and dreamt of owning the car. And I wanted to do it with hard-earned money," says Shah, who is now chairman of Parag Milk Foods, a Rs 320 crore company which manufactures the 'Gowardhan' brand of liquid milk and milk products.

You know what's the perfect symbol of India's bindaas gung-ho spirit, its cussed refusal to mimic the West, and its unpredictability? It's ghee. India has always loved ghee, or pure butterfat. Ayurveda says ghee is great for increasing self-awareness and intelligence, besides getting a complexion and voice to die for. Ghee is soothing and delicious. It evokes memories of dripping rotis, drenched rice, and bowls of dal with a half-inch layer floating on top. Those innocent days before we learnt to eat alien palm oil and soya bean oil. At a time when jobs are toast, and household budgets stretched after salary cuts (a throbbing vein of personal pain currently)

CHANDIGARH: Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today announced a slew of incentives to give a boost to government's ambitious programme of agriculture diversification. The incentives include bringing the power tariff rates applicable in dairy, fishery, goatry and piggery at par with agriculture sector and advancing soft loans to the beneficiaries of goatry and piggery at interest rates equivalent to dairy sector. It also includes stabilising the milk purchase rate and making it uniform across the state besides introducing single window for the promotion of allied farm sector.

AHMEDABAD: Doodhsagar Dairy (Mehasana) chairman Vipul Chaudhary was unanimously elected the chairman of the Rs 11,660-crore Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF). GCMMF markets country's most powerful dairy brand Amul . Mehsana is one of GCMMF's 17 district milk procurement and processing arms. Chaudhary replaced Parthi Bhatol who served two terms of three years each since milkman Verghese Kurien quit in 2006. Both Chaudhary and Bhatol are affiliated with the ruling BJP in the state.

PUDUCHERRY: Puducherry Cooperative Dairy plant will soon launch a project to augment milk production and also modernise the plant's processing capacity,making use of Central government funds under the National Mission for Protein Supplement scheme of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana . The Lt Governor has approved of the project, an official release said today. It said the total cost of the project would be Rs 3.34 crore, of which Rs 2.5 crore was available from the Central government through the RKVY scheme.

NEW DELHI: The co-operative federation that sparked India's milk revolution has warned the government that allowing imports of cheaper, subsidised dairy products from Europe could adversely impact the livelihoods of 3.2 million domestic dairy farmers and hurt consumers. Better known by its brand name Amul, the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) has written to commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma that the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between India and the European Union (EU)

PUDUCHERRY: The CPI today demanded that a private sugar factory here expeditiously settle the amount due to cane growers for supply of sugarcane to it, as farmers were facing hardship due to non-payment. The farmers had not been paid the amount for the last 10 months and this had landed them in penury, the party's local unit secretary R Viswanathan said in a release here. He said a cooperative sugar mill here had also not settled dues to farmers, and demanded that it not delay settling the amount.

MUMBAI: Milk will become dearer in Maharashtra from May 25, with the state government today deciding to hike prices between Rs 2 and Rs 3 per litre. Making an announcement here, Minister for Dairy Development and Animal Husbandry Madhukar Chavan said the price of cow/toned milk supplied by Government agencies has been increased by Rs 2 per litre, from Rs 29 to Rs 31 a litre. Also, the price of buffalo/full cream milk has been raised by Rs 3, from Rs 37 to Rs 40 a litre, he said.

Amul has been ranked amongst the top 21 largest dairy businesses in the world as per the findings published by International Farm Comparison Network (IFCN) at the 10th IFCN Dairy Conference 2009 at Stockholm. The IFCN is a network of dairy researchers responsible for analysing global dairy trends and creating knowledge to guide the various stakeholders in the dairy sector covering about 80 countries, over 60 dairy related companies, a number of dairy related institutions and dairy farmers.